Friday, October 1, 2010

Wild Jelly

I’ve been thinking about wild grape jelly – remembering past years when I foraged along the river, looking for the telltale vines that twine ash trees and young elms, spying dark clusters of grapes. Denis finally pushed me from imagining to doing. He thinks there’s nothing like the intensity of wild grapey-ness made into jelly and spread on a toasted bagel. I understand; the flavor tastes original. As if the sweet tang and shining deep purple hearken back to how God made grape jelly when the world began. Kraft and Welchs can’t compare.

I thought it might be too late in the season, but last Saturday Anita and I picked enough to make one batch of jelly. Along the Zumbro River on the Mayowood Trail we nearly missed them. We craned our necks, searching, pulling the high vines toward us, grasping for hidden bunches of tiny sour grapes. They’re so diminutive and sparse that unless you knew, you’d think they were no more edible than bb gun ammo. Jelly is not difficult to make. We used one packet of Certo (which we probably didn’t need at all because there is so much fruit pectin in wild grapes) and the recipe for cooked jelly which comes in the box. After we washed and picked through the grapes, removing dead leaves and insects, we threw them in a stainless steel stock pot – grapes, seeds, stems and all. I added half cup of water to get them going, brought it to a boil, mushed them up with a potato masher to break out the juice and cooked them about 15 minutes. We poured everything through a pasta strainer to get out the major debris. Then the fun part – putting it in a bag (made long ago from an old cotton pillow case), hanging it from a cabinet handle and letting the juice drain out. When it became a slow drip, I used gloves to squeeze the rest. That gave us the juice and from there we followed the recipe. Just sugar and Certo. After a raging boil, the hot liquid was poured into sterilized glass, lidded and capped. Seven small jars.

The searching, gathering, cooking, pouring. As many times as I’ve witnessed from bitterness to jewel colors and sweet results, it surprises me. A satisfying pleasure. How can it be, why should it be ours? Another mysterious transformation waiting for the right combination, the right time.

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For many years we lived in Toad Hall, an old American Gothic Foursquare house named for the mansion in Wind in the Willows although ours wasn’t really a mansion, the kids just thought it was. Now we live in a different home – one more suited to aging with dignity – yes, well, we can hope – The House Between. “Between” because we are living that stage of life between now and what is to come. Sound a little macabre? It’s not. We needed move to a space with main floor accessibility for older people who may not always be able to climb stairs to sleep and eliminate. We love this home in a quiet neighborhood with offices overooking the wooded ravine behind where we feed birds and watch coyotes play leap frog. We love knowing, too, that this is not our final place – there is more healing and goodness in the next life. I’ve kept the name of my blog toadsdrinkcoffee because I don’t know how to migrate to a new one. The name is now even more obscure, but it had to do with living in Toad Hall and my addiction to coffee. However, I did migrate my old publication – Notes From Toad Hall– to the new one Letters from the House Between.